Riding the Slipstream

Let's rant, shall we? For no particular reason, other than I feel "it is time". Over the next few weeks as World Cup Ebola builds to epidemic proportions, it will prove to be almost impossible not to be assaulted by wave after wave of unrelenting mass hysteria. Yep, World Cup 2006 is here and you can try and run, but you won’t be able to hide from it. Football has always been a popular game and I am myself a HUGE fan, but recently it seems that unless you have football and the history of football running though your veins, you may as well have the words "social pariah" tattooed on your forehead. We are bombarded with newspaper and magazine pull-outs, match schedules, competitions, images of football heroes, flags and bumper stickers, television ads and god-knows-what-else! You can't even go to the garage to refuel without being assaulted by something football-related. I would really like to know how football has come to be viewed with this level of seriousness. I can't help thinking that a lot of this mania are due to people who are playing catch up, people who protest just a little too loudly about how much they love the game. People who feel that they are supposed to love football; and that admitting disinterest in the game is tantamount to admitting that you are a Jacob Zuma-supporter in the town of Witbank. If I have to listen to one more gushing bimbette saying,” My boyfriend and I are such big football fans!”, I swear I am going to pop a Viagra and poke her in the eye with my penis! The truth is, I am not fooled by these spontaneous non sequitur outbursts. These women, and many other people for that matter, probably hate football. Yes, they do! But right now, this is what they feel they have to do in order to belong on Planet Football. I actually like it these days when I sit down and are introduced to people who have absolutely no interest in the game of football. It means I don’t have to sit through hours of tedious, competitive repartee or being patronized by people who carry on as if they had attended or watched very football match ever played. Everyone is suddenly a friggin expert, re-hashing discussions they watched on one of the many Supersport channels or read on the sports' pages of the Sunday Times. And it is these posers, the jackasses with the replica football shirts, who always talk about Brazil and the "beautiful game", who will be sipping Brandy and Coke or tossing down yet another Castle Lager, and who has about as much insight as a lamp post on a highway, that will spoil the Football World Cup for me. The World Cup has become yet another marketing exercise making us believe that football is better with Coke Cola, Budweiser, Hyundai, MacDonalds and MasterCard, and that Adidas made the players what they are today. And to the recently converted, this is what the game has become. For me however, the single-most compelling reason to fear the World Cup 2006 has to be the fact that aging German singer Herman Grönemeyer will sing the official anthem on 9 June 2006. (Yeah I know I am over the top. Sorry... but I couldn't resist.. hehe!)